


Beyond a Joke

by kutubiyya



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Secret Santner Fic Exchange 2017-18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 23:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kutubiyya/pseuds/kutubiyya
Summary: “Well, well,” he says, and hears his voice wobble a bit. “Of all the coffee shops in all the world, I had to walk into yours.”--Jimmy and Swanny meet for coffee and regret; Perth, December 2017.





	Beyond a Joke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tangledupin_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangledupin_blue/gifts).



> For the fabulous Evie, in response to the following prompt:
> 
> _Pairing of author's choosing - “I don’t remember a fight or a reason, so what happened? Why did we break up?”_
> 
> Cheers once again to Hannie for organising, you are awesome, and much more patient than I deserve <3

_I am in love and I am lost_   
_But I'd rather be_   
_Broken than empty_   
_Oh, I'd rather be_   
_Shattered than hollow_   
_Oh, I'd rather be_   
_By your side_

\--First Aid Kit, 'Shattered & Hollow' ([lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/firstaidkit/shatteredhollow.html); [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPw_TWZ1KEk) [live])

 

\--

 

Australian summer mornings are no respecters of hangovers, Graeme reflects, as he steps out of his hotel into the sharp, brilliant sunshine of Perth, and winces.

These mornings don’t do many favours for guys who’ve lost their sunglasses, either. He briefly considers going back up to his room to look for them, but the lifts are rammed with the checkout rush. Plus, he got back late, last night, and three sheets to the wind; there’s a non-trivial chance that he left the sunglasses in a bar, somewhere, so the search would be pointless.

Plus, he’s already late.

Jimmy will be late, too, of course. He’ll have overslept, snoozing his alarm without realising he’s doing it, and then he’ll have spent god knows how long faffing with his hair (as if he’s got any need to worry about _anything_ in front of the mirror). But there’s fashionably late and there’s four-flights-of-stairs-for-no-sodding-reason late, and that’s not a shade of crimson-and-sweaty Graeme wants to bring to this meet-up. For old times’ sake, if nothing else.

( _Definitely_ nothing else.)

Twenty minutes later, he’s standing in front of a vaguely driftwood-themed door adorned with silver foil stars and tiny photos of Che Guevara. He’s got an extra layer of headache from squinting into the glare, and he _is_ sweaty, after all. Trust Jimmy to pick some hipster coffee cupboard a mile from either of their hotels, when there was a branch of Gloria Jean’s just around the corner.

Graeme glances at the message on his phone again to double-check the address, almost avoids catching sight of his flushed, paunchy face in one of the mirrors, then strolls inside wearing his best shit-eating grin.

He spots Jimmy immediately – of course he does; the one-room café is half-empty and Jimmy’s the best-looking guy in it by a country mile – but pretends he hasn’t.

Instead, “Good morning,” he declares to the room at large, mentally lining up half a dozen spectacularly good quips about how Che Guevara would feel about being the face of hipster capitalism. “I’d like to sample your finest organic polka-dot beans with limited-edition designer soy milk and cinnamon sprinkles, if you please.”

In the silence, off to the left, Jimmy clears his throat.

Graeme feels his grin threatening to soften into something fonder, and keeps control of it only with an effort. Turns slowly, for effect.

He still sees the other man on the field, of course; and in the pressers. But somehow, up close, the sight of him – all slender, angular poise and tense energy, even perching on a cast-iron stool in a plain white t-shirt – is almost too much. Full-frontal Jimmy. Graeme reminds himself that he’s looking at tailored clothes and expensive hairstyling, that all this is as much of a carefully-crafted image as the café’s faux-shabby décor, but his mouth goes dry, anyway.

“Well, well,” he says, and hears his voice wobble a bit. “Of all the coffee shops in all the world, I had to walk into yours.”

Jimmy huffs a laugh. “I invited you, remember?”

“You did.”

Graeme’s regretting his tatty old shorts, he’s regretting walking here instead of arriving shower-fresh in an air-conditioned cab, and he’s at least partly regretting all the exercise he hasn’t bothered taking this year. The moment he sits down, he’s going to look like Jimmy’s overweight, over-the-hill uncle. Just like always.

But it’s four years to the day since he told Jimmy he was retiring, and as much as he knew this would hurt, he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

\--

For five years, they were irrepressible. They were a team, a double-act, a duet: Graeme the media’s favourite raconteur and Jimmy his glamorous, deadpan straight man.

They were a breakout crossover hit at a time when cricket was retreating into its velvet-roped, corporate-sponsored ghetto, and even the ECB blithely billed them as _the happy couple_. While grumpy Jimmy had to be coaxed through his interview awkwardness, Graeme hammed up the hugs for the cameras and grabbed every public appearance going. He was never happier than when he was showing off, and with Jimmy at his side he felt bulletproof.

Except. The part he could never get used to was the arrival: the two of them rolling up in a car in their matching suits, deposited in front of an array of cameras to cries of _Over here, Jimmy_ and _Hot date you’ve got tonight, Swanny_. Jimmy a chiselled chalk to Graeme’s ropy old cheese.

He’d take the piss out of Jimmy’s wiry horrible model’s body, and Jimmy would banter right back, asking the suit fitters if they had anything larger around the waist for Swanny. Graeme didn’t really need the reminder that he was out of Jimmy’s league, but better that than the occasions when the other man took pity on him.

 _I don’t know what you’re bothered about_ , Jimmy said, once, as they were waiting their turn with the photographers, looking round with a frown as Graeme tugged restlessly at his suit. _You look great_.

Graeme just sneered. _Don’t patronise me. You look like a film star, and I look like your driver. Still, at least I’m the brains of the partnership._

Jimmy went quiet after that, and when Graeme – beaming, egged on by the press pack – rested a hand on Jimmy’s chest and his head on his shoulder, the other man went very still, and kept his arms tucked stiffly behind his back.

He thought about apologising, after. He never did, though.

\--

Half a cup of coffee down, and the tension in Jimmy’s chest is easing. He can feel himself falling back into the old rhythms: basking in Swanny’s animation through anecdotes about Boycott and impersonations of KP, punctuating the other man’s performance with laughter so well cued and timed it could be choregraphed.

He’s careful not to encourage any probing about the team, or the lost series. He got burned, that first year Graeme took to the airwaves, and no longer assumes he knows where the line is between the journalist and the friend. After a few failed sallies, though, Swanny gets the message and quietly abandons that track, instead throwing himself wholeheartedly into nostalgia.

Jimmy watches the blue eyes sparkle and the hands tracing their extravagant, gleeful, achingly familiar arcs of emphasis, and tries not to think about all the ways those hands used to touch him. Pats of encouragement on the field, pokes of admonishment in the dressing room, tickles; the casual fingertips brushing something invisible from his shirt, the warm palm that sometimes settled on his belly when they curled up to watch TV.

He never knew how much he liked all that, until it was gone. Never realised until after Swanny left how nice it was, how soothing, to be tactile with someone; you don’t really get chance to find that out, as a bloke. Especially not when you’re on tour; especially not in the dressing room.

He used to wonder if it meant something. Then the words in his head, warning him off, in the voice of every school bully he ever met: _you gay, or summat?_ Easier to be fine with it in other people, than to admit about yourself; _to_ yourself.

As if he’s read Jimmy’s mind – and maybe he has; it often used to feel like he could – Graeme says, suddenly, “Embarrassed to be seen with me?”

Jimmy blinks; can feel a certain caught-out heat seeping into his face. “What? No. _Why_?”

Graeme’s gaze goes wandering, roving the exposed-brick walls; the ceiling with its electricals all on display. “So you brought me all the way out here for the _atmosphere_ , then?”

Jimmy had almost forgotten this part. The old shiver goes through him; hackles getting up. He resists. “It had good reviews.”

“Reviews. Right. Just a coincidence that it’s miles away from anywhere the lads might be.”

Jimmy closes his eyes; not again.

“I’ve missed you,” he hears himself saying, into a silence he hadn’t even realised was there, and as soon as he does he knows it’s the wrong thing. “I mean…” He shrugs, looking down at his coffee, backtracking, the way he always used to. “It’s good talking to you. Like this. We haven’t done it in ages.”

He means that; it _is_ good. It’s also _not_ good, in other ways, but that ship has sailed. Four year ago, he waved it off from the shore.

\--

For five years, they were inseparable. They were match-winners and dressing-room leaders; they were tour husbands, living in each other’s pockets, dozing off in each other’s beds.

Broady, bothered by the thought that he might be out of a gossip loop, dropped hint after clanging, floodlit hint that he’d be completely supportive if any of his teammates were, you know, nervous at the prospect of coming out. Swanny laughed loudly, and asked if this was Broady’s way of trying to borrow Finny’s hair-straighteners; Jimmy held his breath, avoided Swanny’s gaze, and waited for the right moment to shift position, so he looked less like he was taking the joke seriously, and trying to get snuggly.

For five years, they teased the world by pretending to be more than friends, but friends was exactly what they were, no more and no less.

Jimmy wasn’t sure when it stopped being a joke. You should probably know stuff like that, really, he reflected; the big things. Like how it felt to finally make it all the way down that steep bit on Pendle Hill without falling off his bike; or where he was when he got his first England call-up; or which song was stuck in his head when he took his hundredth Test wicket. Crystal-clear memories, every one of them.

The day he fell for his best mate? A mystery.

Not _fell for_ like fell for a prank – although actually, there was more than a bit of truth in that phrase. Because for Swanny, after all, the whole thing was just a running gag. A bit of banter on social media, the odd flirty comment during an interview. It was a game they played, to charm the press and wind up their more annoying teammates.

Jimmy never imagined it’d turn out the joke was on him, all along.

He always tried to be careful, certain that if he let even the slightest hint slip, Graeme would know: he’d see through Jimmy, to his feelings, and the game would be up. Silver-tongued Swanny played with words, and used words to play with people: drawing them in and coiling verbiage up around them like they were a spinning top, then letting them go with a snap. He’d never have let Jimmy live it down.

Even knowing all that, Jimmy did try, once. To talk about it. The adrenaline of a series win plus six hours of booze made for a potently stupid cocktail.

They were sitting, arm-in-arm, in the corridor outside Jimmy’s hotel room door, for the sort of reasons that make perfect sense when you’ve had a lot of beer. Jimmy doesn’t remember exactly what he mumbled, anymore, but _I love you_ was definitely, mortifyingly in there, somewhere.

Swanny went very still. _What did you say?_

Jimmy’s belly froze. _I, uh... Nothing._

_Did you just say what I think you said?_

_If you heard me say it, why do you ask? Fuck’s sake._

_I don’t know. I just…_

The silence stretched; Jimmy cracked.

 _Your face._ He forced himself to laugh, pushed at Swanny; the other man promptly keeled over. _Your face. Had you going there._ He put on a high-pitched voice. _Swanny, I love you so much!_

 _You never got me._ Swanny, collapsed on his side, belatedly started to laugh, too; great gulping noises, he made. _Oh my god. You never got me. I knew you were joking._

Jimmy thought about saying it again, one other night, _the_ other night. He never did, though.

\--

“What happened with us?” says Graeme, quietly. “For five years, we were...” He shakes his head. “I don’t remember us having a fight. So why… Why did we break up?”

Jimmy laughs, even though it isn’t funny. Which is fitting, isn’t it, because it was never funny in the first place.

After a long moment, Graeme starts to laugh along with him.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone not blessed enough to have been around while Swanderson were the most canon ship in world cricket, see [here](http://leatheronwillow.tumblr.com/post/81066071881/jimmy-and-swanny-attended-the-lg-icc-awards-2011) and [here](https://kutubiyya.tumblr.com/post/96688915652/viajerra-leatheronwillow-x-they-think). And everything in [this. ](https://kutubiyya.tumblr.com/post/116810261882/leatheronwillow-onthenighttrain-ahh-this)


End file.
